1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a method for customizing skin foundation products at a central location away from a remote customer.
2. The Related Art
There are many reasons why consumers wish to purchase skin foundation products in private as opposed to the public spaces of retail counters. For example, patients seeking the medical advice of dermatologists for the treatment of skin defects often experience underlying emotional consequences. Frequently, once the defect, such as acne, burn tissue or eczema has been treated, the healthy skin may appear blotched, mottled, scarred or uneven in texture or color. Healthy skin may also exhibit rosacea (skin 1 redness) or birth marks (port wine stains) regardless of the age or sex of the patient.
Skin discolorations have been generally left to the patient to address by seeking help at a cosmetics counter or aisle. Even if the customer gets past the embarrassment often associated with such public assistance, the selected product is often inappropriate for the skin type and need of the customer.
Cosmetic customers have been aided by a number of companies in the industry who have sought to provide a means for selecting the customer's optimal color shade. For example, Clinique and Clarion have installed computers at sales counters for use by the customer. Information on color shade, oiliness and other properties of a customer's skin are punched into the computer which then determines the company's most closely matching product.
Custom blending is also offered by two major companies, Prescriptives (division of Estee Lauder) and Visage (division of Revlon). They begin a sale by manually evaluating a subject's skin color. The salesperson then adjusts existing finished foundations so as to match the evaluated skin color. There are many disadvantages in manual blending. On many occasions there is a poor skin match, reproducibility is poor and extensive training is required of the salesperson. Additionally, the process is a cosmetic one which is embarrassing to patients unaccustomed to either buying cosmetics or who feel exposed at a public sales counter.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,871,262 (Krauss et al.) describes an automatic cosmetic dispensing system for blending selected additives into a cosmetic base. The system is intended for use at a retail establishment. A similar system is described in German Patent 41 10 299 C1 (Erdtmann), with the further element of a facial sensor. Although the aforementioned systems have advanced the cosmetic art, they are woefully lacking in addressing the needs of a person wishing to purchase a cosmetic skin product in a private setting.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,692 (Rigg et al.) reports on a method and apparatus for customizing a facial foundation product at the point of sale to a customer. A skin analyzer is applied to a customer's face for reading skin properties. A programmable device then receives the reading and correlates same with an optimal formula. A formulation machine then prepares a facial foundation product based upon instructions received about the optimal formula. Chemicals are then dosed and blended together from a series of dispensers each containing a monochromatic color composition. The optimal formula may be altered through customer preferences by manual alteration of the selected optimal formula. A problem with this method is its failure to compensate for non-normal areas of the skin. The method only focuses upon exact matching of color in the normal areas.
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for matching the skin properties of a person with a particular optimum formula in a private setting, such as a doctor's office, customer's home, hospital clinic, customer's office, etc.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for matching the skin properties of a person in a remote location with an optimal cosmetic formula manufactured in a separate central location away from the point of skin measurement in a manner that is both accurate and repeatable.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for matching the skin properties of a person with an optimal cosmetic formula in a central location that requires only minimal training of the color advisor in selecting the proper product.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more readily apparent through consideration of the following summary and detailed description which follow.